"Sister Rachel saw it first," urged Sister Ann, anxious to defend herself against the imputation of having taken alarm unnecessarily, as though she were a foolish, timid child. "When she called out and caught hold of my arm, I thought she had trod upon a stone, or twisted her foot, or something; and, in turning to her there I saw the pale light in the window, and the figure of the Grey Monk. We stood rooted to the spot, holding on to one another, just too frightened to move, our poor eyes staring at the Keep. He glided past that window, and then past the other, his lighted lamp stretched out in his hand; just as Sister Lettice once saw him glide a year or so ago--and she knows it." Sister Lattice, a simple woman, great in pudding-making, who had stood listening with round, frightened eyes, murmured her confirmation. One night, when she was belated, having been to a farm-house where sickness reigned, she had seen it exactly as the two sisters were describing it now; and had come home and fainted. "I was beginning to forget my fright," said Sister Lettice, looking pleadingly at the two Superiors. "But since the late talk there has been about that poor Mr. Anthony Castlemaine, I've not dared to go out of doors at night alone. For the ghost has been seen more frequently since he disappeared: in fact, as the ladies know, it's said by some that it is the young man's spirit that comes now, not the Grey Friar's." "It was the Grey Friar we saw to-night, let people say what they will," rejoined Sister Ann. The talking continued. This was a great event in the monotonous existence of the Grey ladies: and the two unfortunate Sisters were shaking still. Mary Ursula withdrew quietly from the room, and put on the grey cloak and bonnet of the order, and came down again, and let herself out at the front door. There was something in all this gossip that disturbed and distressed Mary Ursula. Anthony's fate and the uncertainty connected with it, was more often in her mind than she would have cared to tell. Like Charlotte Guise, she--what with dwelling on it and listening to the superstitions surmises in Greylands--had grown to think that the Friar's Keep did contain some mystery not yet unsolved. As to "ghosts," Mary Castlemaine's sound good sense utterly repudiated all belief in such. What, then, she naturally asked herself, was this figure, that took the appearance of the traditional Grey Monk, and showed itself at the windows of the Keep, lamp in hand? Had it anything to do with the disappearance of Anthony?